


The Island

by Tisaniere



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Action/Adventure, M/M, Peril
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-20 19:29:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15541368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tisaniere/pseuds/Tisaniere
Summary: 15 hockey players on a remote island together....sounds like the start of a joke.And having 15 modern NHL legends all vacationing together is fun, at first, as they work out how to get along and enjoy themselves.Then, things start to wrong.It becomes the start of a very bad joke indeed....





	1. Chapter 1

Connor McDavid jerked out of his blissful nap at the sound of Nathan Mackinnon hitting the surface of the pool. Connor had half-heard the cry of ‘cannon ball!!’ echoing back off the tiled pool area, but the words had become oddly tangled into his dream of being alone and stranded on a deserted cruise ship. He ran a hand over his face to wipe away the water and looked down at where Nate’s backsplash had wet his book.

Nicklas Bäckström’s quiet, threatening voice followed the splash, “If you guys get any more of the pool in my fucking drink I’m going to drown you.”

It was 2pm on a Thursday, the first full day that the fifteen of them were on the island, and Connor was surprised by how relaxed he was (creepy dreams about cruise ships aside). Having a comped private island vacation in the middle of the off-season was pretty sweet - even if he shared it with fourteen other NHL players.

The group had arrived the previous evening, just before twilight, in different small speedboats that brought them from the medium sized island that was used as a hop off point from the mainland where the airport sat.

They had dealt with the welcomes and hellos, and divvied up the rooms as the sun disappeared below the horizon. They’d sunk a few cold ones to kick off the vacation and chatted amiably, feeling out the well worn conversations that made up old friends, acquaintances or just the hockey grapevine.

“You’re going red,” Leon said from the lounger next to him, firmly pulling Connor out of his nap. Connor peered down at his chest and sighed.

“Want a drink?”

“Sure.”

Connor stood up, pushed on his flip-flops and slapped over to the tiki-themed outdoor bar area that had been amply stocked before their arrival. They’d been told someone would come to restock in three days time, or to call if they wanted earlier, and Connor wouldn’t be surprised if they’d need to. Alexander Ovechkin was standing behind the bar like a bartender: shirt off, sunglasses on, telling a loud and expressive story in Russian to Evgeni Malkin. He wrapped up the tale as Connor arrived and grinned a gap-toothed grin.

“What can I get you?” he asked, as he spread out his arms wide.

“We still got beers left?”

Geno leant one of his extremely long arms over the bar and opened up the fridge behind it. “Yes. Many.”

“Great. I need two.”

Ovi snagged three and passed two Connor with the bottle opener. He uncapped the third one open with a strong twist of his hand and took a slug.

“All OK with you, Connor McDavid?”

“Oh yeah, yeah, all good.”

“You red already,” Geno commented, pointing with his own beer bottle. Connor looked down at himself, and his skin looked even worse in the shade.

“Damn it.”

“Maybe you need hat too.”

“Is my face red? Shit. I fell asleep in the sun.”

“How can you fall asleep with noise? What are they doing?”

“I think it’s a competition to see how much water they can splash out of the pool before the end of the vacation.”

Connor left the Russians to it and took his beer across the pool area - shielding it from the inevitable splash as a result of Tyson Barrie trying to climb on Gabe Landeskog’s shoulders - and back into the house. He needed a shirt, and more sunscreen, and a cap, and maybe a full on bodysuit: his pasty Canadian skin was hard to tan.

The bright white villa sprawled over the lower part of the island, set upon a promontory so that it overlooked the vast pool area with its rock formations, secret pools and channels. Alongside it a thick line of trees protected them from the wind off the ocean, and beyond that there was water as far as the eye could see. The house was made of a large living area and small kitchen space - apparently the owner wasn’t a natural chef - and was surrounded on three sides by hallways leading to the bedrooms. This was apparently a small summer vacation hideaway for the owner and his extended family, so many of the rooms simply had one bed, but a few had an extra bed here and there, all had en-suites and all of them sported pretty heavenly sets of silk sheets.

They were all sharing, apart from Jonathan Toews who took the small box room at the very back of the house. All rooms had access to their own small patio with privacy afforded by a small hedge to shield them from the others, but the patios led to grass that connected up the whole house area. At the back of the house a path led up a rocky outcrop and up into the cliffs at the end of the island, palm-tree studded and spectacular even at their relatively small height. Down the west side of the island a thick forest grew rambunctiously, untouched by man. Connor had heard creatures calling to one another through the night from those trees, and was keen to avoid _that_ part at all costs.

At the very tip of the island a craggy lagoon offered great diving and swimming opportunities. At least that was what the concierge had said to the assembled group of jet-lagged, half-asleep hockey players when they’d arrived. 

Connor shouldered his and Leon’s room door open and picked about in his suitcase for a shirt to wear. He was digging out his baseball cap when he heard another enormous splash and a lot of raised voices. Connor pushed an _adidas_ baseball cap over his hair and hoped none of them gave him shit over how red he was already on day one.

Fifteen NHL players - hand picked by this eccentric billionaire owner of the island because they were ‘his favourites’ - staying together over 10 days, alone on a remote island. God knows what would happen.

 

* * *

 

“Maybe it should be like homeroom. We need an attendance register.”

Auston squinted at his fellow Maple Leaf from under the shade of his cap. He was wiping his sunglass lenses clear on his towel because he'd managed to gum the glass up with sunscreen-sticky fingerprints. He’d watched Connor try to sneak past, already sunburnt, and made a note to chirp him about his pasty Canadian ass later.

“We really don’t,” Auston said, realising Mitch _actually_ wanted to discuss this idea.

“But there’s fifteen of us, how can we all keep track of each other? What if someone gets lost?”

“A, we’re on holiday and we don’t need to keep track of each other. And B, how can anyone get lost on an island that takes like an hour to walk across?”

Marner was more than willing to continue his argument so Auston breathed a sigh of relief when Sidney Crosby flopped down on a sun lounger beside them.

“Hey Sid, don’t you think that-”

“Mitch shut up.” Auston insisted.

“ _You_ shut up.”

Sidney angled the beak of his cap down and settled himself in the lounger. He pretended not to smile at the sound of the two teammates bickering. He’d stop them eventually if he had to, but he was on vacation - he could have a little break from captaining.

Jamie Benn dropped into the lounger on Sid’s right.

“Hey.”

“Hey Sid.”

Sid tried his best to take a sneaky look at the Dallas Star captain under the cover of his sunglasses. Sid hadn’t failed to notice that since his arrival Jamie had been quiet, fidgety and restless. They knew each other well enough from their time in Sochi together, and the hockey player grapevine meant he had a bit of up to date info - Sid was friends with Nate, who was close with Tyson, who was an old friend of Jamie’s - but Sid didn’t profess to be close enough to guess at what might have caused it. When they’d arrived the night before he’d noticed those big brown eyes roaming, as though he was looking for someone to jump out of the trees. 

Sid wondered if he should ask Tyler Seguin if his teammate was OK, but reminded himself he wasn’t _their_ captain either. Plus…he was on vacation.

“You know much about the guy that offered us this place?” he asked Jamie, trying to get him into a conversation.

“Er, no,” Jamie said with a shrug. His fingers picked distractedly at the arm of the lounger, “Not much. They didn’t say a whole lot, we just know that the PR guys were keen for us to do it.”

They chatted amiably for a while, but Sid could tell Jamie’s attention was elsewhere. His long looks to the pool where Tyler was sat atop Nate’s shoulders didn’t go unnoticed.

“What are you guys doing?” Sid called out to the four men in the pool. Tyler was on Nate’s shoulders and Tyson Barrie was on Landeskog’s. As far as Sid could tell the two on top were trying their best to knock each other off their perch.

“Winning!” Tyson hollered. He grappled for balance by snatching at Gabe’s hair. 

“Ow! And fuck, how much do you weigh?!” Gabe chirped up at him. Tyson ignored him and launched himself forward to knock Segs off his balance.

“Wait, move closer!”

“I can’t move, you’re drowning me.”

“Nate go forward, forward, I can’t reach him!”

“Don’t fucking kick me Segs, I’m not a horse.”

It ended with Gabe barging Nate over and sending Tyler sprawling backwards into the water. Tyson waved his hands above his head triumphantly until Gabe tipped him off into the water as well.

“Think it’d be a miracle if all of us get off this island uninjured,” Sid joked, watching Jamie watch the spectacle, but only got a soft ‘huh’ in response.

The wrestling and diving competitions eventually tailed off into afternoon naps in the shade. It was a habit hockey players found hard to break even in the off-season, especially when daytime temperatures soared and all that could be heard was the ocean.

As the day transitioned into evening, Ovechkin organised a group to go and discover the beach that ran around the east side of the island. They scaled the narrow but beautiful sands and investigated the rocky lagoons that the concierge had told them about. When they returned they found Tyler, Fleury and Geno at the BBQ, whilst Leon and Gabe ferried armfuls of beef and salmon steaks out to them.

They all ate around the huge dining table on the patio in front of the house and the conversation flowed easily. They all knew each other in some way, either personally or by reputation. With hockey in common it wasn’t hard to find things to talk about. It actually seemed - as they shuffled around the fire pit on the outdoor sofas and fell into conversation, card games and stupid bets - that the holiday might go a smoothly as their respective teams’ PR departments hoped. 


	2. Nausea

Tyler woke up around 2am and wondered where the hell he was. There was no light through the windows, and the air was warm and muggy. The sheets were silk, not cotton, and there weren’t three dogs on top of him, so he knew he wasn’t in either Dallas or Canada. It took a moment before his brain got with the programme. He and Jamie had been given one of the two master bedrooms so they had a huge King sized bed and a large expanse of empty room around them. Jamie was on the far side of the bed breathing deeply and totally slack in the sheets.

Tyler sighed and eased himself into a sitting position. His throat was dry and he was desperate for a piss.

He dealt with his full bladder, eyes half closed and lights off, then shuffled back into the room. Jamie was spread out on his back, one hand tucked behind his head. It showed off those biceps normally hidden under baggy hockey jerseys, and all his new ink. It made Tyler feel funny deep in the pit of his stomach.

He let out a long breath and moved through the room. His eyes had adjusted to the gloom and he was able to get out the sliding doors and out onto their private patio without breaking a bone in his foot. 

There was little light to see by once he stepped outside. The moon was hidden behind a lazy streak of cloud, and the bank of trees rising across the other side of the island sang with nature's night life. 

Tyler hadn’t brought his sliders out with him, but he still decided to venture off onto the grass. It wasn’t his brightest idea, barefoot and all, but he was desperate for a chance to cool off. He found his way around the front of the house where the fire pit still glowed hot. He stood at the top of the steps and watched the ocean rock gently.

It could have been two minutes or ten minutes, he wasn’t sure. Looking out into the sea helped his mind a little, but did nothing to cool off his internal body temperature.

At least the moon had come out from behind the clouds, so he spent a bit of time tracing the trail of destruction 15 hockey players could do to a poolside area. There was an uneven abandoned amount of flip flops - how the hell did that happen…

Eventually he gave up cooling down from standing outside. He knew they hadn’t bothered to lock any of the doors, so he turned to head into the kitchen and get a cold drink of water.

He had a hand on the handle of the French windows when something caught his eye in the kitchen. The intense white light of the moon blazing in the clear sky picked out a figure.

Connor.

He had his back pinned against the kitchen counter, and he was looking down at something intently, like a puzzle he couldn't quite solve.

Connor threw his head back and then oh _shit_ , Tyler realised he was watching Connor McDavid mid-blow job. Tyler instinctively took a step back and clamped a hand over his mouth. He did a few moments of deep breathing and just about managed to wrestle his hysterical laughter under control. He moved closer to the doors for another look.

He wasn’t keen on voyeurism but, come on, this was Connor McDavid. He needed to know who the guy attending to his dick was. There were thirteen possible scenarios and each one of them interested him in their own way.

The problem was the kitchen island blocked his view. Tyler did his best to avoid Connor’s face, because he’d already got an eyeful of McDavid’s rock-out-with-his-cock-out expression. He didn’t need to see that again.

The back of the head at waist level looked pretty familiar, with short cropped hair stopping in a blunt line at the nape of the neck. A sight that Tyler recognised from the strip above the collar of a bright orange 29 jersey.

Yeah, that was Leon Draisaitl.

Connor’s fingers scraped down the back of Leon’s neck and Tyler closed his eyes with a shake of the head. That was it, done, he’d seen all he needed to see. And now he had to start scrubbing the image of his friend Connor McDavid getting sucked off out of his mind.

He tiptoed away from the French windows and back around the side of the house. The clouds were back over the moon and he was unable to see a thing.

He finally managed to find the right door and slid back into bed as quietly as he could manage. 

He lay totally still in the dark until he was sure he hadn’t woken Jamie, and count to one hundred silently in his head in an effort to not laugh about what he had just seen taken place in their kitchen.

Once his shock had subsided somewhat he rolled over and stared at the short hairs on the back of Jamie’s angular neck.

Tyler sighed a little louder than he meant to into his pillow.

* * *

 

Tyson woke up with one of Nate’s massive arms across his chest. It made breathing difficult and explained his weird dreams about being suffocated by a large bear. It didn’t really explain his dream about being pregnant, but he had a tendency towards strange dreams when he was overheated. He lifted Nate’s hand by the wrist and dropped it onto the mattress next to him. Nate didn’t stir an inch - it took a lot more than nearly suffocating a friend to wake him up from his catatonic-like sleep, especially when he’d had a beer or two.

Tyson sat up and looked around the room to gather his bearings a little. It was the third morning on the island and he finally felt like his body and brain had relaxed into the right rhythm. Even so, it was still a bit of a shock to wake up in the same room as two teammates in the off season.

He fished his phone out from the detritus that littered their bedside table - empty Gatorade bottles, phone charger cables, bug repellent tabs for the plug-ins, a list of concierge phone numbers and a packet of biscuits from one of the many airports they’d transferred through to get to the island. His phone told him it was 9am, which explained the already sticky heat pouring in through the windows.

After spending a bit of time fucking around on Instagram he decided to drag himself out of bed. As he did so he caught sight of his captain in the room’s second double bed.

Gabe lay sprawled across the mattress with his arms wrapped around the pillow, a picture of Swedish godliness. Tyson sighed. He’d had a plan this summer. This off-season was the one in which he _absolutely_ and _thoroughly_ got over Gabriel Landeskog, resident stallion and Avalanche captain. When they returned for training camp he was going to be able to receive a touch or look from Gabe and not break out into hives (and what Nate called ‘pathetic heart eyes’). He was going to stop talking about Gabe’s studliness to everyone within earshot (especially on camera), and he was going to stop letting his heart do little stutters when the sun caught Gabe’s face at a certain angle. No more imagining waking up next to him, no more deciding where they’d go on honeymoon together, no more wishing the world was a little more fair. No more singing either Boyz II Men’s _I’ll Make Love To You_ or _Pony_ by Ginuwine in his head - depending on how horny or hysterical he was feeling - when Gabe came out of the locker room shower.

Gabe was about to get married and Tyson’s pining had moved from aspirational and innocent to desperate and a little creepy. He was happy for Gabe, he really was, and he thought his girlfriend was genuinely lovely. He didn’t want to go so far down this path of unrequited love that he stopped being happy for Gabe and started being bitter and resentful. He wasn’t that sort of person. And Gabe, a guy he counted as one of his best friends, didn’t deserve it.

Tyson put his feet firmly on the floor, closed his eyes, and told himself to do better. He snagged his towel from where he’d carelessly tossed it at the end of the bed the previous night and went for a shower. Maybe some alone time in the shower would cheer him up.

Except - maybe not.

All steamy thoughts of Gabe were now banned, even in the shower.

And of course the door to their en-suite didn’t lock, so _definitely_ no morning treat. He flung himself in the shower and purposefully left the tap a little on the cold side. He thanked whatever lord there was that he hadn’t decided to risk it because a few minutes later Nate came bursting in.

“I have to piss,” he told a squawking Tyson, like that was a perfectly reasonable explanation for barging in on him in the shower.

“Couldn’t you wait a minute?” Tyson asked, dousing his hair under the spray, “You’re an animal.”

“What, like I haven’t seen it all before?”

“No, but I don’t really like the idea of you talking to me with your dick in your hand. Hurry up.”

“How do I know you’re not doing the same?”

Tyson waved his hands wildly where they were shampooing his hair, even though Nate couldn’t see him with his back turned.

“Just get out!”

Gabe would never burst in on him in the shower. Gabe - and the Swedish nation, if Gabe was anything to go - had absolutely no problem with nudity (my _god_ did Gabe not have a problem with nudity in the locker room, no wonder Tyson struggled so hard to focus in there). It was all naked saunas and hot springs with that lot. But they were also private, and Gabe was certainly respectful of his team’s boundaries. At least that’s what Tyson thought, until Gabe stuck his head into the bathroom sleepily.

“What are you two shouting about?”

“Control your alternate!”

“There, I’m done,” Nate said, flushing the toilet, “Geez, you’re such an old lady.”

“Wash your hands.”

“Yes, Mom.”

Tyson tried his very best not to show either his bright red face or much of his body to Gabe - it was the off season OK, he had a right to hide a little - and said, “Great, everyone out now. I’m in the middle of a shower.”

But Gabe was _still_ standing there, and Nate was _still_ looking at himself in the mirror. Tyson wondered what it was that made hockey players such a weird breed. He counted himself in there, of course, but that didn’t make it any better.

“Anyone else still think this vacation is a bit creepy?”

Tyson rinsed the shampoo out of his hair and decided to ignore the pair of them, hoping that might make them leave.

“Creepy?”

“Yeah. This guy’s just invited all of us to an island. I mean, players like Crosby, Ovechkin and Toews? If this island blew up it’d make the NHL look very different.”

“It’s weird you think that way,” Nate said gruffly.

“Think about it, there’s some NHL legends here. And the guy doesn’t want to _meet_ us? Doesn’t that sound suspicious?”

“Not enough to not come, obviously.”

Gabe shrugged his huge shoulders, “Was just thinking.”

“Well I’m having fun. Kinda like being at All Star weekend without all the publicity around it. Or having to play hockey.”

“Yeah, and you get to meet your boyfriend’s boyfriend,” Tyson chirped. He gave Nate a pointed look through the glass door of the shower and Nate rolled his eyes.

“OK, Tyson’s in a pissy mood. Let’s leave him to it.”

“Who? Wait, who does he mean?” Gabe asked as Nate shoulder barged him out the door.

“Geno the big hot Russian!” Tyson hollered after them, just to make sure Gabe heard before Nate slammed the door closed. Well, if Nate was going to be an ass to him during his peaceful morning shower, then Tyson would play dirty.

* * *

Alex was taking photos of everything and everyone. Nicke gave him a narrowed eyed stare over the top of his book.

“What are you doing?”

“Documentary.”

Nicke rolled his eyes and went back to his book. It was about a Swedish detective working a gruesome murder and he’d picked it up at the airport in Washington. It was mildly holding his attention and he needed a little extra concentration, what with it being in English. A topless Ovi straddling him to try to take a photo of a bird of paradise flower was hardly good for focus.

“You’re worse than Seguin.”

He was pretty sure Tyler’s Instagram was chock full of a blow-by-blow account of this whole vacation. He didn’t want to look at them because seeing photos or videos of himself made Nicke break out in a rash. Not so for Ovi, who had now moved on to taking a selfie by the pool. Nicklas went back to reading his book and pointedly ignored his captain. The Russian was dangerously close to the edge of the pool but maybe if he fell in trying to take a selfie that would teach him a lesson or two.

Back at the house a group had settled around the large outdoor table. A game of cards was going on whilst others looked on, everyone feeling listless in the intense heat. The large shades did little to cool them and it certainly wouldn’t be long before everyone was back in the pool or the sea.

“Does every Russian you know spend half his time naked as well?” Fleury asked. He was looking over at where Ovechkin was snapping photos on the steps down from the house. A few that heard him looked over.

“What made you think of that?”

“I literally haven’t seen Ovi wear a shirt since we arrived. Not once. Or Geno. They both _arrived_ with no shirts on.”

“Every Russian teammate I know is always parading around topless.”

“I’d say the same.”

“I think it’s a nationality thing. Muscles and skin all out for the world to see. They think it shows they’re tough.”

“Maybe they want to be like Putin.”

“Don’t get him started on Putin,” Toews said. He didn’t look up from his book but pointed a finger right at the nearest Russian. There was a slight pause whilst everyone waited to make sure Ovi hadn’t heard them. He was clearly too busy taking pictures of a parakeet in a nearby palm tree.

“OK, more like an ESPN body issue then.”

Johnny gestured with his finger again, “Don’t get _him_ started on rubber ducks.”

Him being Tyler, who had just strutted out of the French doors with a silver tray resplendent with tiny, filled-to-the-brim shot glasses. He put the tray down and frowned at Johnny. “Don’t get me started on what?”  
  
“Never mind,” everyone else at the table chipped in quickly.

“What the hell are those Segs?”

“I have no idea, but the bottle looked awesome.”

Fleury wrinkled his nose, “It’s green and it smells like paint-stripper. Are you sure it’s alcohol and not...you know, actually paint-stripper?”  
  
“‘Green’ and ‘smells gross’ are two very good things when it comes to alcohol. Anyway, I couldn’t get hold of the concierge guy so if you want a cosmo on the rocks, Flower, you’ll have to get it yourself, ‘cos this is all there is in our kitchen.”

Fleury shrugged and picked a glass off the tray. He handed it to Sid on his right who pulled an even more disgusted face, “No, thank you.”  
  
“If I have to die of alcohol poisoning on a remote island then so do you.”  
  
“Yeah Sid, the captain has to go down with his ship,” Tyler said, passing out more shots to the men around the table.

“Where’s your captain?” Sid asked as he stared reluctantly down at the drink placed in front of him, “I think we need him to keep you in check.”

When Tyler didn’t immediately respond Conor nodded a head towards the lower garden behind them, “He’s on the phone down there.”

Connor had come out of the sliding doors at the back of his apartment earlier, fresh towel in his hand, and spotted Benn on the little patio outside his and Tyler’s room. He’d had his head bent, shoulders rounded, and he’d looked unhappy. Connor had tiptoed past, not wanting to intrude, but if he turned his head he could see through the bougainvillea tree and make out the tops of Jamie’s huge shoulders as he paced up and down the patio area. He was more than a little surprised when Tyler didn’t even glance in that direction, and didn’t miss the tension that sprang around his eyes. Connor took his drink silently when handed to him.

Ovechkin sauntered over and snatched a shot without any need for instruction.

“Hey wait, no drinking yet. We all have to make a toast, together.”

Geno came out of the sliding doors with another tray, “More here for everyone!”

“Want me to get Jamie?” someone asked Tyler.

“Er, yeah,” Tyler said distractedly, but Jamie had finally put the phone down and was peering at what everyone had in their hands.

“What’s going on?”

Sid picked up a spare and passed it over his shoulder. Johnny put his book down and inspected the shot glass placed in front of him, “This shit looks lethal.”  
  
“And those were their final words…”

“Lighten up. Three, two, one.” Everyone swung their heads back and 15 shots of mysterious green alcohol went down the hatch. Followed by a lot of coughing.

“Oh _man_ that’s nasty.”

“Fuck that burns.”

Only Ovechkin seemed to come out unscathed, “That’s not bad.”

The rest grumbled and spluttered and hid their faces from the group.

 

Later that afternoon, once the heat had ratcheted up to melting point and everyone had peeled off to find a place to cool down, Auston and Mitch found themselves alone at the outdoor table.

“My phone is fucking shit.”

Auston slammed his phone down on the table and stabbed a finger at the back of the iPone, “I spend half my time being told I need to update it, and the other half deleting stuff ‘cos there’s no storage. Now it won’t connect to the wifi.”

Mitch didn’t look up from where he was sighing at his own wi-fi settings, “Don’t think it’s just your phone, mine’s not working either. Maybe the wifi went down. Give it a minute. We’re pretty remote, it might just have lost signal for a bit.”

Auston sighed in his hand, “I still hate my phone.”

They were into a pretty intense discussion about the merits of the new iPhone when the slap of flip-flops on tile heralded the arrival of Fleury from his nap.

“Anyone else lost the wifi?”

“Yeah we both have.”

“Man, there’s no phone signal either. I wanted to call Vero.”

He scooted back a chair and dropped into it with a sigh. He took a few more moments to fiddle with his phone then swore in French and slid it onto the table, “Nothing.”

“If it’s still not working in an hour we can call the concierge.”

Fleury kicked back a little and placed his hands over his midriff, sunglasses reflecting little sparks of light at the boys across the table, “My stomach is going crazy after that shot we had.”

He rolled his head and looked over to where Connor, Leon and Nate were snoozing on sun loungers under the shades. Tyson was on a fourth lounger but sat up. He looked equally frustrated at his phone.

“Wi-fi’s down!” Fleury hollered across to the pool. Tyson threw his arms in the air and jogged barefoot over to the three of them, “Those guys are being boring, what am I going to do without signal?”

“Read?”

Barrie snagged himself a beer from the poolside bar and shook his head, “My Kindle’s charging. What are you up to? Want a beer?”

He passed out beers to Auston and Mitch but Marc-Andre declined with a small shake of the head.

“Nothing much. Where’s everyone else?”

“Still sleeping, I guess. Actually I think I saw Ovi and Geno go down to the beach.”

They were deep into a debate about the merits of a pool versus a beach when Fleury suddenly pushed back his chair. His flip flops slapped smartly across the floor as he jogged inside without a word.

“You ok?” Mitch called at his back. Fleury waved a hand but didn’t stop or bother to shut the sliding door behind him.

“Looks like someone’s got the shits.”

“He said his stomach was messed up after that shot, maybe it’s coming up the other way.”

“Can you imagine if we all got the flu? On an island like this we’d all get it within like a day. Jesus, that’d be funny.”

Auston gesticulated incredulously, “Tyson! Seriously, don’t say that. Why is that funny? We all share bathrooms!”

“Sorry!”

Mitch downed the last of his beer which had already warmed disgustingly in the sun. He had started to turn red across his chest and forearms, so he lifted up his empty beer bottle and his useless phone and headed towards the house. He needed to dig more sunscreen out of his hastily packed luggage, and maybe a cap, since he could feel his scalp prickling hotly.

He also needed a glass of water and to not hang around listening to a theoretical discussion about them all being sick. He didn’t want to admit it but he’d felt queasy all day, even before the shot.

He was on his way to the bedroom when he ran into a Gabe Landeskog in the kitchen. He looked decidedly peaky and sucked on a Gatorade bottle like his life depended on it. Gabe waved away his concern.

“I’m fine, I just threw up. I must have eaten something bad.”

“Shit, really? Fleury ran off to do the same not long ago.”

“Then maybe it’s the meal we had last night.”

Gabe downed more Gatorade then nodded at Mitch, “You alright? You look kind of pale.”

“I’m always pale.”

Gabe blinked at him slowly then went back to his drink, “OK.”

Mitch definitely wasn’t alright. He made it to his and Auston’s en-suite and knelt on the floor in front of their toilet. He willed his stomach to keep itself under control, until he thought throwing up might actually be the best thing.

It passed, eventually, but not until he’d done some dry heaving and sweated through his shirt. He changed, splashed himself with cold water, and when he went back into the kitchen Gabe was gone.

Mitch poured himself a glass of cold sparkling water and it settled him enough to risk facing the outside world again. As he headed outside though he could distinctly hear the sounds of someone vomiting violently, somewhere in the house. Mitch couldn’t tell if it was Gabe or Fleury but it took him a moment to control his own reflexes once again.


	3. Secrets

As it turned out, Tyler didn’t even need to engineer some alone time with Connor to discuss the previous night. Tyler wanted to take some cliff top photos of the sea - because what was a holiday without Instagram bragging rights? -and he found Connor sitting up there under the palm trees, flip flops dangling from his toes. He had a jug of lemonade next to him.

“Oh hey. Am I interrupting anything?”

“No, just trying to stay out of the sun for a bit. I’m already pretty burnt.”

“I get it. We pasty Canadians have got to stick together. In the shade.”

Tyler took a few photos then flopped down next to him.

“For the ‘gram?” Connor teased.

“Of course.”

They chatted for a while about their off-season, about the vacation, about the weird billionaire who’d asked them to go on a holiday together but not actually meet the guy himself. When that topic tailed off Tyler figured it was now or never.

“So…you and Leon.”

Connor drank the last of the lemonade while he looked Tyler up and down.

“Me and Leon what?”

Tyler snatched the jug and poured himself some into Connor’s empty glass. The sounds of Geno trying to drown Flower floated over the rocks.

“You guys enjoying your honeymoon?”

Tyler thought Connor might be a blusher, he’d seen him go red with embarrassment before, but this time McDavid just went very still and very white. He didn’t get out any noises but Tyler guessed his next question.

“I saw you guys in the kitchen. What a way to break in the communal areas for us.” Tyler smoothed his hand over his mouth to hide his grin as Connor stared at him, slightly glassy eyed and sweaty.

“Huh?” was all that came out. Then eventually he garbled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ok, you’re going to make me say it? I’m talking about Leon looking for gold at the end of your rainbow in the kitchen about two o’ clock this morning.”

Ah, there was his blush. Connor bloomed red from his scalp to his navel - an impressive feat considering he was kind of red from his sunburn anyway.

“I…I don’t…”

“Connor it’s fine, I’m not going to tell anyone else. And hey, exhibitionism is a kink, I get it.”

“It’s not funny,” Connor said, eventually, after a litany of half-choked noises, “I can’t believe… _shit_ , I’m going to kill Leon.”

“Would never have pegged you for a dangerous liaison kinda guy. In the kitchen? Seriously, that’s bold.”

“Stop laughing.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”

“It’s not funny! Fuck, I mean…thank god it was _you_ at least who saw us.” Connor ran both his hands through his hair and determinedly fixed his eyes at a point over the ocean, avoiding any eye contact with him, “ _Fuck_.”

“Look, I gotta know. Was that _your_ idea? Or is it Draisaitl whose got a thing for public displays of affection?”

Connor, with his panicked stare still pointedly out to sea, eventually pushed out the word, “His.”

“Ok. That makes sense. I can’t see you suggesting it, I’m surprised you even went along with it.”

“Please stop talking about it.”

“It’s fine Connor, I’m not going to tell anyone. Come on, it’s funny.”

“It’s not _funny_. What if it wasn’t you? What if someone else saw?”

“Well I didn’t see anyone else queuing up to watch.”

Connor swallowed, looking nauseous, “ _You_ didn’t… _watch,_ did you?”

“Once I’d established that it was you and Leon, and that neither of you were being held at gunpoint or anything, I left you to it.”

Connor groaned a little.

“I didn’t see you come in your teammate’s mouth if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Connor made a strangled noise and put his hands over his ears, “Jesus don’t _say_ that. What the fuck, Tyler?”

“I think you should be a little less embarrassed and angry at me, your friend who stumbled upon something private unknowingly, and a little more pissed off at your exhibitionist boyfriend.”

He let Connor sit in silence for a moment, agonising to himself, before he added, “Here I thought your dick had a chastity belt on it, now suddenly you’re into a bit of kinky stuff?”

Connor rolled his eyes. The redness was starting to recede, slightly, but he still couldn’t look Tyler in the eye. The wind direction changed towards them and they could clearly hear the strains of a Sean Paul track with a backdrop of Auston calling Nate an asshole. A loud, violent splash followed.

“I don’t….I’m not… _He_ is,” Connor finally gritted out.

“Not a bad kink, but a dangerous one for a closeted NHL player.”

Connor finally looked over at Tyler to scowl at him, “We’re not stupid, it’s not like we’re banging in Edmonton parking lots.”

“Well he’s sucking you off in a kitchen with thirteen other hockey players sleeping nearby, it’s not exactly _smart_.”

“He’s manages to convince me, every now and then. As long as it’s not too…”

Connor looked like he would rather be chewing barbed wire than having this conversation, but Tyler was pleased he hadn’t run away or thrown himself off the cliff just yet. If he and Connor had been less acquainted he wouldn’t have even brought it up, but he was pleased his friend had found someone. Even if he did have what Tyler found to be a rather odd kink for their situation.

“So he’s trying to show you the delights of public sexy stuff? I gotta say, I respect him for that.”

“Shut up. Don’t tell Leon, ok, please? And I am never, ever doing anything he suggests like that ever again.”

“Oh come on, I didn’t mean to kink shame you, lighten up! Do what you want. You’ve got a hot German boyfriend who likes a bit of danger. Roll with it.” Tyler poured himself more lemonade into the shared glass, “Wait, is he your boyfriend? Or are you guys just hooking up?”

Connor put on his sunglasses and looked back out to sea. “No. Boyfriend.”

“Wow. Well congratulations, Connor. I’m happy for you.”

Connor looked at him from behind his sunglasses, and Tyler didn’t know if it was a glare or one of his blank, shrewd stares, but eventually he said, “Thanks.”

They sat in silence for a while before Connor added, “This is the most embarrassed I think I’ve ever been in my life.”

Tyler threw his head back and laughed, “I’m sorry. It was just too funny not to bring up. Seeing you squirm is pretty priceless.”

“Shut up,” Connor mumbled, though mostly good-naturedly.

“Plus I’ve got to have something on you. Remember before Biosteel camp? At that hotel? That was pretty embarrassing for _me_.”

“This is way, way worse. You owe me at least three more nights of drunken vomiting and sobbing on my shoulder before we are halfway to even.”

“No way, I’m not forgetting to eat dinner then going out drinking with you ever again.”

Connor snatched the lemonade off him and drank some in an attempt to bring his heart rate down a little.

“So how did you and Leon go from teammates to, er…kitchen buddies?”

Tyler felt the force of his glare even through the sunglasses.

“I had just broken up with a girl, he had just heard one of his friends from back in Germany was getting married. We just kind of talked and we both realised maybe there was a reason he had stayed single and I’d never really been too bothered about previous girlfriends.”

“Aw. That’s cute.” Tyler kicked back and smirked, “I was kind of hoping you’d both gotten wasted and he’d asked to screw you in a bathroom cubicle.” He waved his hands with a flourish, “And the romance was born.”

“Not even slightly. And he doesn’t _just_ want to do that sort of stuff you know, it’s not like that’s all we do.”

They both fell into companionable silence for some time, enjoying the wind off the sea and the dappled shade. Eventually Connor broke it with a new topic of conversation.

“So Jamie is acting weird…”

“Don’t even,” Tyler said, before he could stop himself, and buried his face in his hands.

“What does _that_ mean?”

Tyler blew out a lot of air.

“Look, you owe me something. I embarrassed myself in front of you-”

“Fine. Fine.”

Tyler scowled at the horizon and put his thoughts together.

“We were both in Dallas before we flew out here, and he came around to mine. He was acting weird. I thought maybe he’d had an argument with his girlfriend, but she’d come to Dallas with him, so then I figured maybe it was something else. His Mum had been sick towards the end of the season and she’s better now, but I know he was worried about her. It was such a stupid idea, but I brought out some whiskey that I’d got as a thank you at my friend’s wedding.” Tyler scratched at his beard ruefully, “I don’t really behave great on whiskey. Vodka and spirits and shit make me happy and annoying, wine is fine I just get tired.”

“Beer makes you cry,” Connor pointed out.

“Yeah, OK. And whiskey…I kinda get nasty, and argumentative. And we drank way too much whilst _not_ saying anything about why he was in such a goddamn mood. When I finally asked him I was in a bad mood too, because he was being no fun and because I was drunk. We got into a big fight. He was saying shit and I was saying shit, and I told him he was fucking emotionally constipated, or whatever. That I knew something was wrong, and he wasn’t telling me, and that was fine but he had to tell someone. Because I didn’t want a captain that hadn’t got his shit together the next season.”

“Ouch.”

“I know. And then he…I don’t even remember what it was he said, but something about me and the Bruins and the trade. And I said some shit about him and his girlfriend. And he just stormed off, and walked back to his place. I woke up the next morning and his car was gone from my drive. The next time I saw him was at the airport, here.”

“You guys talked at all since then?”

“A bit. About anything other than that fight. And I feel like a dick, because he was clearly sad about something, but…”

“So were you.”

Tyler blew out a long sigh, “Yeah. Basically.” He picked at a frayed thread from his swimming trunks and shrugged his shoulders, “Unrequited love sucks.”

Connor looked at him for a long moment, remembering all of the woe, snot and tears that Tyler had left on his shoulder after a drunken night before Biosteel camp turned into a therapy session. And how not a whole lot seemed to have changed for Tyler in the meanwhile. 

“Yeah. It does. I’m sorry, Tyler.”

“Nah, don’t be. I don’t know why I let it get to me so much. I’d managed a year of pining, don’t know why I couldn’t let him just be mad and upset about something and not have to, like, join in. And piss him off even more.”

“You think he was angry about his girlfriend?”

“I don’t know.”

“You gonna talk to him about it?”

Tyler shook his head, “I think I’d rather crawl over broken glass than have that conversation with him. And he clearly doesn’t wanna have it with me so….whatever. We’ll work it out before the season starts.”

“Tyler you might as well try now. I mean, you’re stuck together. There’s only other players here, there’s not going to be any photos, or press, or gossip. You’re on vacation. Why don’t you just bring it up now and at least you’ve still got time before the new season if it’s still shit when you leave. You never know.”

“I guess.”

Tyler looked thoughtful for a moment before adding, “If I talk to Jamie can I get a reward? Can I tell Leon what I saw the other night?”

“Tyler.”

“Come on, I want to see his face when he finds out. If it’s anything like yours it’d be hilarious.”

Connor folded his hands behind his head and stretched out across the grass, “He wouldn’t be embarrassed. He’d just punch you in the mouth.”

“I could take him.”

“No. You really couldn’t.”

“Yeah you’re totally right, I couldn’t.”

* * *

 

“Wait, wait, I have to tell you something,” Connor said breathlessly. Leon looked at Connor through his lashes and chased his lips again. Connor finally wrangled his thoughts back together, which was hard to do when Leon’s thigh was pressed between his legs, and stopped him again.

“One second.”

“What?”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Ok. Tell me.” Leon turned his attention to Connor’s neck and Connor groaned low in his throat.

“That’s not helping.”

Leon just chuckled deeply. Connor gripped at the short hairs at the base of his neck and turned Leon’s face up to him.

“Tyler saw us in the kitchen.”

Leon blinked slowly once, twice, at Connor’s reddening face.

“And?” he said eventually.

“The other night. You know, when we-”

“Well I guessed that was what you meant.”

Connor put a hand over his eyes, “Oh god why are you so cool about this?”

“You clearly are or you wouldn’t have waited so long to tell me.”

“I’m not _not_ cool about it. But I’m not cool about it!”

Leon smirked a little, “Makes sense.”

“Shut up.”

Leon straightened up and gripped the back of Connor’s neck with a firm hand, the kind of grip that made Connor melt, “What’s bothering you?”

“I didn’t want to get caught doing _that_!”

“I know,” he gave him a long soft kiss and did finally look apologetic, “Sorry.”

Connor sighed, “It’s not your fault.”

“It kind of is.”

“Yeah, it kind of is. But I was happy to take the risk. Not like I didn’t enjoy it. Still…”

“At least it was Tyler,” Leon said, smoothing Connor’s hair back from its dishevelment, “He’s your friend.”

“Are you not embarrassed?”

“No.”

“Well I am,” Connor grumbled, “And Tyler’s got chirping material from now until the end of both our NHL careers.”

“Need me to beat him up?”

Connor couldn’t help his grin. “No.” Then, “As if.”

“Can I do anything to make it better?”

Connor hummed, pretending to think. He gave Leon a biting kiss and when they finally came up for air the German sighed breathlessly, “OK, I can do that.”

“Good. But we lock the door.”

“I’m not sure I can move that far at the moment.”

“If you lock the door now, then I can do number five on the list when we get back to Edmonton at the start of the season.”

“Number five? Really?”

Connor produced a small, wicked grin, the one that made all the hairs on Leon’s arms stand on end. Leon was in the middle of quietly locking their bedroom door when he suddenly turned around with an idea, “What about Tyler for number seven?”

Connor squawked and threw an empty water bottle at him. Leon chased him to the bed for retribution.

* * *

 

So far the sickness appeared to be confined to just Gabe, Mitch and Flower. Mitch was the last to admit his fate, after Auston entered their bedroom and heard some pretty clear retching noises coming from their en-suite.

The group made a simple dinner of more steaks on the BBQ and a few potato salads, and the sick ones picked at what they fancied. They all ended up in the outdoor seating area as the darkness fell and the raucous sound of cicadas rose up from the island around them.

“Does anyone know _anything_ about this guy who owns the island?” Connor asked. Some guys were playing cards, a few others were messing around on their phones bemoaning the lack of wifi, and Auston and Tyson were having a debate about how big a shark could grow.

“There’s a magazine with his face on in the living room,” Toews suggested, bored and stripping his empty beer bottle of its label.

Tyler clambered over the back of the outdoor couch and skidded across the tiled floor to collect the magazine from the living room. He got back settled on the seat and Johnny snatched it off him.

“So that’s what he looks like?”

He held it up to show the collected group.

“He looks like a pretty standard rich guy.”

Johnny read off the front of the magazine, “‘Sankler Corporation’s billionaire owner invites you to enjoy his new island resort. So this must be written for us. Wait, let me find the interview.”

Toews paused, flipping through the pages with his eyes on the bottom corner. He pushed open the correct page and cast his eyes over it. Most of the guys drifted off, only half-remembering they’d been talking about the rich man that had bought them here. Auston and Tyson were still arguing about exactly how large a shark could be.

Connor was the first to notice Johnny’s pale and scrunched expression.

“Go on then, what does it say?”

“This is…” Johnny shook his head, “I don’t get what’s going on here.”

“What do you mean?”

“What the hell is this magazine? Tyler where did you get it from?”

“Just from the house. Why, what does it say?”

“I’m not reading this out,” Johnny said, folding the magazine closed on his lap.

“Why?”

“It’s full of…I don’t know, stupid things about us. Someone must think it’s funny.”

Leon plucked the copy out of his hands and found the page. He read out loud, “Star Jamie Benn dumped by girlfriend over Tyler Seguin rumours…wait, what the hell? Is that a joke? I don’t get it.”

Jamie’s face dropped like a stone. The guys that noticed went quiet; those that didn’t just laughed.

“What, is this like a spoof thing? What else does it say?”

“‘Auston Matthews yet to tell teammates of diabetes diagnosis. That's not real, right Auston?” 

“What the hell?” Auston bit out, his face tense. Mitch got whiplash looking over at him, too quick for Auston to get his face under control.

“Where did they get this crap from?”

Leon’s eyes danced over the page and he couldn’t help but sound out the start of the next sentence, “Tyson Barrie’s family in debt crisis after… Whoa, Tyson, that’s not true is it?”

"What? Oh shit.”

“Stop reading stuff out,” Sid said, because he saw how waxy Auston had gone, how stricken Tyson’s face had become, and that Jamie was glassy-eyed and sweating. An awful silence came over the group.

And then the power went out with a bang.

“The fuck?” Nate groaned.

They waited in the dark for a long moment. The only light on the whole island was the gas fire pit in front of them.

“Ok. What do we do now?”

“I think that’s the storm coming in.”

Just as Nicke said that the sky on the horizon lit up with a threatening spark of lightning.

“Shit. We’d better go inside.”

They turned off the fire pit and shuffled inside. No-one dared speak to anyone else.

The three who’d secrets had been spilled by a rogue magazine fidgeted uncomfortably, clearly at war with themselves over whether they should leave and not come back. In the end, Jamie disappeared to his bedroom in the darkness. No-one said anything. Tyler made to follow him then stopped suddenly and backtracked. In the end he flopped down on the couch next to Toews, who gave him a soft squeeze on his shoulder. Auston busied himself helping Ovi find the fuse box whilst Tyson tried his very best to disappear into the darkness next to Nate.

Mitch stalked after Auston as he went to find a flashlight in the kitchen.

“Is it true? Why didn’t you tell me?” he hissed.

“Because it’s fine.”

“It’s _fine_?”

“It’s not a problem. I can still play hockey, I’m still the same as normal. I’ve not lost my arm or anything.” He slammed a cupboard door shut for effect then regretted it. He didn’t need any of the gossips over in the living room hearing anymore of his business.

“I know that, but it’s still different isn’t it?!” Mitch let out a rush of breath through his nose and then corrected his line of questioning, “When did you find out?”

Auston crouched down and searched with his hand through the mess of bottles and rags under the sink, “End of the season. They sent me for some tests, I’d had a load of symptoms that made sense. It came back positive.”

Mitch was quiet for a moment and all Auston could hear was the sound of his own scrabbling and the others in the living room stiffly commenting on how close the storm was getting.

“Domi has a dog.”

“Huh?”

“Max Domi has a diabetes dog. He has type 1 diabetes and he got this dog just in case his levels dip and-”

“Mitch, you think I should get a dog?”

“Did the doctors say anything about it?”

“No. Funnily enough the first thing the doctor said to me wasn’t ‘let’s get you a dog’. It was more about insulin and shit.”

Mitch started saying something then stopped, “Wait. I need to throw up, then we’re going to talk about this more.”

Auston finally, mercifully, closed his fingers around something that felt like a torch. He pulled a huge Maglite out from under the sink and by the time he stood up Mitch’s footsteps had retreated to their bedroom. He smacked the torch on and went to find Ovi outside where they had located the fuse box.

The fuse box, though, was next to useless. The storm had wiped out their power and all they could do was wait until it cleared and it came back on. They found candles to light and littered them about the living room. It was oppressively hot and so the windows and patio doors were left wide open. The sound of the storm rumbled through the group’s bones. Geno and Ovi tried their best to keep the tone light with some stories of their days in the Russian KHL, but the tepid, tense feeling that hung over the room remained.

Eventually Tyson mumbled something about going to check on Jamie and slid out of the room. Gabe tried to follow but Nate snatched at his shirt and pulled him back down.

An ear-splitting crack of thunder shook the house.

“Hopefully this storms passes,” Connor said awkwardly into the ensuing silence.

Nobody said anything else. Not then, not when the rain came and pelted the island so hard it made their back teeth hurt, not when one by one they peeled off to the bedrooms and called it a night. Eventually just Tyler, Ovi and Auston were left in the living room.

“This place is freaking me out,” Tyler said, his voice a little cracked and dry.

“It’s just an island,” Ovi said, his voice having both the gravity and the brevity of a captain used to giving advice, “Don’t let it win.”

He picked up his vodka bottle and shook the remaining contents, the clear liquid catching and tossing about the soft light of the candle, “Anyone want some?”

They both shook their heads. Alex knocked back one more finger of vodka and then took himself to bed, clapping them both on the back with bone-crunching intensity as he left.

The remaining pair sat in melancholy silence for a while longer. The storm had started to pass and the sound of the crashing ocean became clear over the rush of the rain. A stiff wind whipped through the open patio doors and around the roof, snuffing out the last of the two candles in the living room.

Tyler’s voice broke through the darkness, “Max Domi has, like, a diabetes dog. At least you could get a dog out of this.”

“Shut up, Seguin.”


	4. Alcohol

Sid came out into the kitchen in the morning to find a topless Tyson flipping pancakes and humming tunelessly. The power was back on and the day was promising to be a clear and sunny. Bar a bit of a flood just beyond the patio doors where the rain entered, the house had come away from the storm unscathed.

“Morning Sid,” Tyson beamed, shaking the pan in his hand, “Pancakes?”

It took Sid a moment to collect himself. In the Penguins bedroom, the policy about last night appeared to be one of blithe ignorance. If everyone could pretend they hadn’t heard anything the night before, maybe the vacation could be salvaged. That was an easy policy to uphold since Fleury had been groaning in bed, and Geno had been asleep. But Sid had hoped, for everyone’s sake, that the rest of the house took the policy on board. He hadn’t expected to see Tyson up and about after the way he’d slunk off the night before.

“I thought I smelt something good. Got enough to share?”

“I’m making them for everyone. Well, I’m gonna try. I’m kinda hoping some guys want to be boring and have toast instead.”

Sid perched onto one of the barstools and rested his elbows against the kitchen island, “How’s Gabe doing?”

“Not great. I didn’t really get much sleep, he threw up most of the night in our bathroom. Nate and I had to keep taking turns getting him water and stuff. How’s Fleury?”

“He threw up once a couple of hours ago. He’s trying to sleep now, but he’s got bad stomach cramps.”

Tyson slid another pancake onto a stack. It was good to see Tyson cheery, but Sid got the impression Tyson was skilled at using cheerfulness to smooth over the cracks.

“How are you doing?”

“Me? Oh, yeah, good.”

Tyson began to go red up the back of his neck and did his best to avoid Sid’s shrewd look.

“Ok, I’m not…it is fine, really. It’s going to get public soon anyway, everyone was going to find out eventually.”

“Is your family ok?”

Tyson bit his lip as he poured more batter into the pan, “No. Not really.”

He paused, prodding the spitting batter or a moment, and Sid waited patiently.

Eventually the floodgates opened. “I went back home to help them out, but my Dad won’t hear about it. He gets so mad. We had a big argument, and he sort of kicked me out. I had to go and crash with an old friend. Then he and my Mom rowed, and she left and went to stay with my aunt. My sister got mad at me too, she thinks I handled it badly and should have known Dad was too proud. I think she’s just angry at our Dad but loves him too much to tell him he’s an idiot. I just wanted to help, you know? I earn good money. But she’s right, he’s too proud. And now none of them except my Mom are speaking to me, and I don’t think she’s moved back home yet.”

“I’m sorry, Tyson. That’s no fun.”

“No, it’s not.”

Sid waited, knowing there was more, and eventually Tyson gave it up, “I sent them the money anyway. They literally wouldn’t be able to pay their bills if I didn’t, and they could have lost the house. But…it was so much, and it’s still not enough. They’re in deeper trouble than I thought. And I really doubt I’m going to get any of that back which is fine, I knew what I was doing when I sent it but still…it’s _so_ much.”

“You’re OK though, right? You don’t need anything?”

“No, I’ll be alright-”

“Because I could…”

“Sid it’s OK, seriously.”

“If you did-”

Tyson swallowed and give Sid a slightly damp-eyed smile, “Thanks. Seriously, thank you. But I’m fine. And they’ll manage in the end, I’m sure. I just kind of want it all to be over soon.”

“I can imagine.”

Sid pushed himself off the stool and busied himself counting out plates. They didn’t talk again until Gabe came shuffling into the kitchen.

“You look awful. You shouldn’t be up,” Tyson scolded him.

“I needed a water.”

“Where’s Nate?”

“Having a shower in Jamie and Tyler’s room. He wanted to leave me the bathroom free.”

Gabe winced as he sat down on one of the stools and put his head in his hands, “But I can’t puke any more. I can’t. There is seriously nothing left in me.”

Sid got him a bottle of water and Gabe thanked him. His voice sounded like he’d been eating gravel, and he smelt sickly, with sunken eyes and a serious amount of beard growth across his jaw.

“Keep drinking water.”

“I can’t even keep that down.”

“I know, but the last thing you want is to get dehydrated in this heat. Let me see if this place has got a first aid kit, they should have rehydration sachets in there.”

Sid started searching in the living room and instructed a sleepy-looking Geno to help him when the Russian emerged from their bedroom.

“I have to? I’m still sleep.”

Sid prodded Geno gently into doing what he asked, and that left Gabe and Tyson at the kitchen island. Gabe sipped his water gently and watched Tyson whip up more pancakes.

“I like your pancakes,” he said, “I’m sad I can’t eat them.”

“I can make you some for when you feel better.”

Gabe nodded.

“You Ok, Tyson?”

“OK? Yeah sure, why?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know about your family. When did it start?”

“You didn’t know because I didn’t say anything. Don’t worry about it. And I only found out when I went back home in the break. Well, that’s not true, I kind of knew something was going on. Mom’s not that good of a liar.”

Gabe scratched at his beard, “Let me know if you need anything, though.”

“Thanks, Gabe. Get in the queue though, Sid offered first.” Tyson laugh was a little forced, but Gabe looked pleased to see him smile anyway. Tyson made to whack him with his spatular, “Get back to bed Sickly Swede. Don’t want you passing out and face planting in my pancakes. Go.”

All players that weren’t vomiting into their en-suites crowded around the outside table and made appreciative noises over Tyson’s non-dairy-gluten-free-but-still-tastes-like-something pancakes. 

No-one made any reference to the night before. Not when they were greeted with the sight of an overly cheerful Tyson handing out pancakes, not when Tyler and Jamie emerged from their rooms at different times and stayed 10 feet away from each other, and not when Auston slouched into the room and glared at them all from under the brim of his cap.

By the time breakfast was being cleared away some of the remaining tension had dissipated, and the policy of ignoring the issue seemed to be working.

The happy atmosphere soured a little when Mitch had to sprint from the table as his body rejected the half a plain pancake he’d managed to swallow.

“I’m really sorry,” Mitch said when Auston appeared in their bathroom. Mitch had perched himself on the edge of the bath, reluctant to leave the room even though he knew that his heaves could bring up nothing else. He looked up at Auston from where his face was resting in his hand and gave him a watery smile, “Sorry you got one of the sickies.”

Auston frowned at him a little, but he seemed amused, “Yeah, just my luck. Way to ruin my trip. If it weren’t for you this whole thing would be the best vacation ever.”

Mitch laughed weakly and Auston passed him a bottle. The liquid inside looked like water except for the slightly off-colour tinge to it.

“We ran out of Gatorade. Sid found some rehydration sachets in a first aid box so we’re sharing those out now. Drink the whole thing.”

Mitch nodded and slugged a few mouthfuls. It tasted gross but then again everything tasted gross.

“How are you feeling?”

“I can’t stop retching, so my stomach muscles hurt. And my eyes. And my head.”

“That’s dehydration for you. Drink up.”

Mitch nursed on the bottle miserably for a while, Auston fiddling with their things at the sink for something to do.

“Thanks, Nurse Auston.”

“Shut up,” he said, though affectionately.

“You could definitely do a career change if the hockey thing doesn’t work out.”

Auston helped his teammate to his feet and guided him into their room. They had two large double beds in this room and Auston couldn’t be more grateful for the space when Mitch started up his rounds of loud and violent vomiting. He let Mitch drop under his covers and pressed the water bottle back into his hand. He kicked the trash can closer, just in case.

“Drink the whole thing.”

“Did anyone manage to get in touch with the concierge yet?”

Auston wasn’t great at sugarcoating the truth. He shook his head.

“Any phone signal? Or wifi?”

“Not yet, no.”

Mitch finished the last of the bottle and placed it on his cluttered bedside table. There were empty water bottles, tissues and packs of saltines that he’d attempted to eat all jostling for space on the narrow side table. Auston cleared most of it away whilst Mitch snoozed in the dark. He was about to leave, thinking his teammate was fast asleep, when Mitch’s hand caught the back of his shirt.

“Auston?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re alright though, aren’t you? Like, you don’t need anything? Insulin and stuff?”

“Yeah, I’m all good. Don’t worry about me Mitch, just try to get better.”

“Awesome,” Mitch said into the pillow, letting his fingers trail off Auston’s clothes, “Thanks Auston.”

Auston reached out to pat his arm gently then stopped himself. He thought it best to keep turned away from Mitch for the moment until he could be sure either his friend was asleep, or he wouldn’t be able to see the look on Auston’s face.

Auston stuffed Mitch’s trash in the garbage in the empty kitchen. He was fiddling with the bag and trying to remove it, so they could place it in the rat-proof bins outside, when he realised someone had joined him. Sid smiled at him over the kitchen island.

“Hey. How’s Mitch?”

“Well he can’t seem to throw any more up. He drank the rehydration stuff, he’s just sleeping now.”

“That’s good.”

Auston knew the look on Sid’s face and yanked the bag out of the trash a bit more aggressively than he’d meant to. It was the same face his sisters got after his diagnosis when they asked him how he was _really_ doing. The same face his friends pulled when he snagged another bottle of beer, or his Dad when he helped him move stuff around in the garage earlier that summer. Like they were bringing up chunks of the Web MD page on ‘living with Type 1 diabetes’ that they’d memorised, and wondering whether what he was doing was ‘allowed’. Could he have beer? How much was too much? Should he be exerting himself like that? Was he going to dehydrate himself too quickly? Was he coping with the diagnosis?

He tied up the bag and tried to leave with it before Sid could do all the things that everyone else had done since his diagnosis to piss him off, but the world had other ideas. The bag split at the bottom and a day’s worth of kitchen trash slumped onto the floor.

“Fuck,” Auston spat, throwing the bag down. Sid silently helped him out, and they both did their best not to gag on the smell of warmed up food leftovers. They got all of it swept up and into another bag, tied securely and into one of the large refuse bins. They were walking back to the kitchen when the look came over Sid’s face again, and Auston desperately wished for more falling trash. When Sid opened his mouth to speak he had that captain’s look on his face, the one with the small smile and ‘let me help’ eyes, and it was eerily similar to every other look a captain had ever thrown Auston’s way when he needed some advice. Auston was about to interrupt him, to tell him please don’t baby me I’m fine, but all Sid was, “Look after yourself, eh?”

Then he left and called out to Tyson at the pool that he wanted his book back off him. 

* * *

 

As the day warmed, so did the group. The policy of ignoring the night before held strong and everyone went back to sunbathing, cracking on with their vacation reads or swimming to pass the time. Half the group wandered over to the beach or the rock pools, the others choosing to snooze on the various pool inflatables.

Jamie slipped away as soon as he could and slouched into his and Tyler’s bedroom. He rummaged through his bag to find his phone, then tossed it away when he remembered that they still had no signal or wifi. He sighed and cast a glance around their room. It was littered with the sort of detritus that made up a vacation. Baseball caps were scattered everywhere, shirts and vest tops bunched up on the floor, a bottle of suntan cream perched on Jamie’s bedside table, at least three pair of sunglasses abandoned on various surfaces. Tyler’s phone lay abandoned on his pillow.

Jamie didn’t like where his thoughts were wondering, so he scrubbed his hand through his hair and ambled out onto their patio. He slid the door shut behind him and sank into one of the chairs. He wasn’t sure how long he sat out there, wallowing.

He broke from his reverie at the sound of his room’s door sliding open. Nate stood with his hand on its handle, with a hesitant grin and a bottle of wine.

“Hey. You OK?”

Jamie motioned for him to sit down. Nate uncorked the bottle and got two clean glass tumblers out of thebathroom. He filled them both up and handed one to Jamie. The wine was deep red and smelt expensive.

“Where is this from?”

“There’s a basement with a wine collection.”

“Seriously?”

“I went exploring and found a locked door. Broke in, and there was the wine.”

“Should we be taking it?”

“We’re trapped on here with no way to reach the outside world and we’re running out of food and water. I’m breaking into the wine cellar, guilt free.”

He poured them a glass each and they drank heartily. 

“Thanks, Nate.”

Nate wiped the back of his mouth with his hand, worried about blue lips and teeth, and shrugged, “I’m already Tyson’s go-to when it comes to his general day to day angst. I figured I might as well help out the other sad Victoria boy here.”

Jamie laughed into his glass, “Thanks. I think. Is Tyson ok? About his family and everything?”

“I don’t know. He told me about it when it happened but I think he was hoping it’d blow over. From what I got it’s a lot worse than they all thought.”

“Damn.”

“Sucks that it got out to everyone here.”

“Believe me I know how he feels.”

Nate blew out a sigh, “So. You definitely single then?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry man. Who did the dumping?”

Jamie rubbed his face, feeling all the exhaustion flood him like a drug, “Out of the blue she said she was coming back to Dallas with me. When we got there she said she wanted to talk. About us. Or about me, mostly. She said I hadn’t been happy for a while, and that she’d figured out why. She’d come all the way to Dallas to dump me and then be nice to me, basically.”

“Not the worse thing in the world.”

“No. Embarrassing though.”

“So…the Tyler Seguin rumours?”

“They’re not what you’re thinking they are.”

“Right. But you kind of wish they were?”

Jamie screwed up his face, thought about it for a moment, then drank two large gulps of the wine. Nate knew from his experience with Tyson that now was the time to stay quiet. He sipped more wine. 

“ _She_ told me _me_ how _I_ felt about Tyler. Just like that, like it was easy.”

Nate tried not to smile into his wine glass. Jamie really was Tyson 2.0. At least Nate knew how to make the right sympathetic noises.

“So you never really thought about it before?”

“What, that I might not be totally straight?” Jamie shrugged one shoulder, clearly uncomfortable that he couldn’t even say the word, “No. Not really.”

“You wouldn’t be the first person who was the last to know their own feelings. That’s….that’s just being a person.”

“But it doesn’t matter, either way, does it? I can’t _do_ anything about it. I can’t be gay in the NHL it’s just…there’s no way.”

“‘And hiding who you really are for all of your career and then finding yourself lonely and sad at the end of it all works out great for most guys in your situation.”

Jamie tossed him a weak glare.

“Anyway, I think you’ve got a bigger fish to fry before you work out any of that.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You and Tyler.”

Jamie looked down at his wine sourly, then drained the rest of his glass.

“Hey, this isn’t whisky. You got to let it breathe or whatever.”

Jamie responded by pouring himself another large glass.

“There is no me and Tyler,” he said eventually.

“Of course there is. There’s you and Tyler as friends. As teammates. You’ve got to do something about that.”

“I’m not drunk enough for this conversation.”

“I’ve talked to Tyson about this shit _a lot,_ ok? I’m good at this.”

“Gabe?”

“Exactly. Come on, you can see Tyson’s crush from space. The poor guy is so far gone for him and it’s making him miserable. Because until he’s dealt with the Gabe problem he’s just holding back on everything else and it’s making him sad.”

Jamie nodded into his drink, “Tyson’s a nice guy. I don’t know why he’s never found anyone.”

“Aside from the whole NHL being homophobic thing, it’s because he can’t get over Gabe. He’s got big enough problems being gay and playing hockey, but he’s adding to it because he’s crushing on his captain. Hard. And it’s sucking all the life out of him. Think about it, can’t you just imagine Tyson settled down by now? With a disgustingly cute dog he co-owns with some sweet Canadian boy? Come on, that’s totally Tyson.”

Jamie made agreeing noises.

“But it’s not. Because he loves Gabe, and he can’t seem to get over it.”

“You’re saying I need to get over Tyler.”

“You know that’s not what I’m saying,” Nate said, bouncing the cork off Jamie’s head, “Jesus. I am surrounded by idiots.”

“I didn’t know you even talked this much, Nate.”

“I do when I have to. I’m saying you’ve got to deal with the Tyler thing first, then your whole ‘am I gay’ thing, then the whole ‘how do I play gay’ thing.But deal with Tyler first. ‘Cos he’s your friend, and your teammate, and you’re his captain, and you owe it to each other. The rest of the stuff will happen afterwards.”

Jamie let Nate pour him more wine as he turned his words over and over in his head.

“But how the hell do I talk to him about it?” Jamie asked eventually, sounding as sad and small as he felt.

“You could get him drunk. Not a whole lot else to do on his shitty island. Get him drunk, or get both of you drunk, and let alcohol do the job for you.”

“Don’t get him drunk,” a voice said from behind the partition hedge.

Nicklas’s face appeared first, not seeming remotely sheepish. His body came next, topless and clad in a pair of swimming trunks in Swedish flag blue. He invited himself to a chair on the other side of the table from the pair and sat down. 

“Fuck. Were you listening?”

“Kind of hard when there’s only a hedge between us.”

“I thought everyone was at the pool or the beach.”

Nicke held up his hand where an impressively large plaster covered the back of it, “Sharp rock. Just needed to cover it up.”  
  
Bäckström had his usual impenetrable expression on that was fortified all the more by his reflective sunglasses.

“And I can’t let bad advice go.”  
  
Jamie put his head in his hands.

“Don’t worry, Benn. I won’t tell anyone.”  
  
“Especially not Ovi,” Jamie said through his fingers.

“Especially not Ovi. He’d think getting him drunk was a good idea.”

Nate shrugged his shoulders and poured himself more wine, “I don’t see a problem. Alcohol is a quick way to the truth.”

“Alcohol is quick way to _drunk_ truth. Not the same thing as real truth. Drunk people are idiots.”

Nate conceded the point, and agreed that a drunk Segs would be even worse than a regular drunk idiot. 

“Then what do you suggest he do?”

“Just tell him. Here is a good place, we’re stuck.”

“Surely it’s the _worst_ place. I can’t escape if he hates me.”

“You could throw yourself in the ocean.”

“Thanks Nate.”

“Why would he hate you?” Nicke asked, picking up the bottle to read the label. Neither had offered to get him a glass but Nicke didn’t seem to care for what the label told him anyway. He topped up Jamie’s glass and Jamie relented.

“We had a fight, before we came over. I said some stuff I shouldn’t have.”

The two men’s silence wore him down.

“I said some stuff about his trade and about him that I really, really shouldn’t have. Stuff I know he hates, he gets upset about.”

“Sounds a bit more than pulling his pigtails,” Nicke said.

“More like I kicked him in the stomach. It wasn’t…good, what I did.”

“Then before you get anything about your feelings out there, do that first. Go apologise to him. Talk about _that_ , first. The rest will be easier then.”

Jamie looked up at Nicke who paused for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. Good advice.”

Nicky left them to it not long after, prodding at his band aid as he went.

Jamie tilted his glass to Nicky’s retreating back.

“Do you think he and Ovi have ever…”

“Oh, yeah. Totally.”

“I think so too.”

“Let’s face it, no-one’s ‘out’ in the NHL yet but those two are basically married.”

* * *

Everybody was teetering on the edge of boredom and outright fear. No matter how hard they tried, no-one had enough phone signal to contact the concierge, or anyone for that matter. The wifi was still down. The revealed secrets hung morbidly over the group. It made Auston moody, Tyler and Jamie cagey, and Tyson downright exhausting, what with all the forced cheeriness.

As the searing midday heat it the island Geno, Tyler and Nate slunk into the living room to try to find a movie to entertain the group away from the piercing sun.

Geno grabbed the remote and powered the TV on.

“At least it work,” he said over the sound of Nate and Tyler bickering over what sort of channels they might get. The sound was soon drowned out by the very loud noises of two people going at it on the high-def, wide screen TV.

“Jesus Geno, what the hell did you put on?!”

“I’m not do anything, it was already on!”

Geno stabbed the channel up button and the channel changed - to more porn. This time a woman was riding a man in a gimp mask like she was at the rodeo. Geno swore in Russian and kept pressing more buttons whilst the rest of them fell about with laughter. Every channel was porn - gay porn, straight porn, everything. He tried the volume but it was to no avail - it was stuck on high. The other other Penguins put their head through the sliding doors to see what the fuss was about.

Fleury beamed. Sid gaped in horror.

“What the hell are you guys watching? Geno!”

Sid sounded so scandalised that it only made the others laugh more.

“It was the TV! Not me, TV broken!”

“Help, Sid, he’s trying to corrupt us! Sid, stop him!” Nate cried, throwing a pillow over his face in fake horror. Geno called them something no doubt offensive in Russian and threw the remote at them.

Connor and Leon emerged from their bedroom at the ruckus. Connor made a garbled noise when he saw the TV, “What the fuck?”

“I don’t want this kind of vacation with you guys,” Leon said grimly, heading to the kitchen. The shouts and laughter eventually attracted the whole group. Ovi snatched the control and went through all the channels.

“This is crazy. There’s like fifty porn channels.”

“Did they do this especially for us? ‘Cos that’s just weird.”

“What the hell is she going to do with that cucumber?”

Johnny stepped over the couch and went to the wall beside where the TV was mounted over the fireplace. He scrabbled around for a moment then pulled the plug.

“There. No more porn.”

“You’re such a spoilsport Tazer.”

“Oh sorry, want me to put the porn back on? Circle jerk, anyone?”

“God no.”

“Ugh don’t even joke about that.”

It took a long time for them all to calm down and stop laughing. Auston gave Tyler’s shoulder a shove.

“Trust you to be one to discover porn, Seggy.”

“Hey, I’m an angel, I’ve never watched porn in my entire life. Anyway it was Geno that turned it on.”

Geno showed him his middle finger. His nervous little glances at Sid to see if he’d been forgiven didn’t go unnoticed by a few of the others.

“This island is so bizarre.”

“I still kinda want to know what she was going to do to him with that cucumber.”

 

 

The day passed quietly, but by nightfall Tyler was ready to vibrate out of his skin. He couldn’t face keeping his eyes to the floor anymore in a desperate attempt not to accidentally make eye contact with Jamie. He couldn’t stand the sympathetic and curious looks the others tossed their way without realising it. He also couldn’t stand the idea of going to bed next to Jamie again. The previous night had been hard enough. The pair had spent the whole night lying barely a foot away from each other, both wide awake and yet pretending to be asleep. Tyler had been so terrified of accidentally touching Jamie that his body had been a tense, angry ball. His muscles were knotted and sore today in retribution. Somehow going to sleep on the couch seemed even worse though.

As if the pair of them being together hadn’t been awkward enough after their final meeting in Dallas, and now all this ‘rumours’ stuff…

“Let’s get drunk,” Tyler told Tyson, grabbing his arm. Tyson didn’t give much resistance. A few hours later they were in the wooded fringe at the tip of the island. And drunk.

“Dude, believe me, us suckers in love can spot each other a mile away.”

Tyler frowned blearily at Tyson, “Huh?”

“At least yours is possible. He just broke up with his girlfriend.” Tyson swigged out of the bottle, “I see the way you look at my old friend Chubbs. Like he’s…a steak.”

Tyler snatched the bottle from him and grumbled into the neck of it, “Don’t know what you are talking about.”

“What about those ‘rumours’ about you?”

“Doesn’t mean anything. It was just shit they made up. There’s nothing with us.”

“So _nothing’s_ happened between you two then?”

“Don’t,” Tyler said, his head in his hands, “I really can’t think about this right now.”

“Sorry.” Tyson put a comforting hand on his shoulder, “Would it make you feel any better if I talked about his stupidly I am in love with my own captain and that nothing is ever going to happen there?”

“A little. Is that true though? You never know, man.”

“He proposed to his girlfriend at Christmas.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. And he’s so classically straight it’s like…ridiculous.” Tyson shook himself a little, “I should just _stop_ , and I am trying to. But it’s hard.”

“Tell me about it.”

Tyler lifted his glass and they toasted to their shitty love lives.

“Gabe’s a nice guy,” Tyler said confidently when they’d changed their position to lying starfish-shaped on the grass, their glasses dangling in their hands, “He wouldn’t be a dick if he found out, would he?”

“No, he wouldn’t. He’d be nice about it. But it’s still weird, right? I wouldn’t want him to be uncomfortable around me. So I’m never going to tell him. It’ll go away one day.”

“How long have you known him?”

“About six years.”

“How long have you liked him?”

“About six years.”

“Good luck.”

Tyson groaned up into the night sky, “This is terrible.”

“I think the only thing that will work is a distraction. A very physical distraction.”

Tyson dug his feet into the turf and frowned, “Wait, that wasn’t a proposition was it?”

Tyler punched him on the arm, “Jesus, what do you take me for?”

“I’ve heard things, Seggy.”

“I should be offended.”

“Hey I’m a hockey-playing, dark-haired Victoria boy. I thought that was your type? I’m literally a replacement Benn.”

“You’re _what_?”

“I’m like Jamie’s _really_ bad body double. Want me to grow a fucking awful beard too? And gel my hair way too much?”

The pair of them laughed themselves silly, until they were light-headed and totally breathless. Tyler eventually sighed, “No, I wasn’t propositioning you. But hey, if you wanna hook up with someone whose discreet and stuff…I know a few people.”

Tyson decided that staring straight up at the stars was the best right now, because he wasn’t sure what his face might look like.

“What? You’re kidding.”

“Nope. It’s not like hitting a club and picking up is always an option.”

Tyson blew out a lot of air, “Nah. Thanks though man. Not really my thing. Who are they? Not, like, their names, but how do you know them?”

“Friends of friends, mostly. They don’t give a shit about hockey, or my personal life. It’s just a smart way to sleep with someone and not worry.”

“Are they the only ones you sleep with?”

“I’m not always smart.”

Tyson heard the sadness in Tyler’s voice but didn’t think he wanted his sympathy. He’d been there before and felt that sickening dread and fear that had been overridden the previous night by alcohol and bravado. He’d survived, mostly by luck because the guys were clueless about NHL. One had been a Spanish doctorate student over for his friend’s wedding, and they’d gone back to his Airbnb with minimal chatting in the Uber. Tyson didn’t think they even _had_ ice hockey in Spain, and the guy didn’t bat an eyelid when he lied and told him he worked in sales. Another had been a self-confessed NFL fan and his sleek bachelor pad on Manhattan Beach was basically a shrine to the Rams. Tyson doubted he had enough room in his head leftover from all the shit he knew about the Rams to acknowledge another sports team. He barely even paid enough attention to the sex. But those guys had been over a year ago, and despite it being fun to let off a bit of steam so to speak, the hungover panic the next day just wasn’t worth it.He hadn’t wanted Nate’s sympathy as he assured him that it was ok, he was sure no-one had found out, stop refreshing Deadspin…He’d just wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

“Do you want _me_ to talk to Jamie?” Tyson finally asked after the moment of grim reality had passed, “I can talk to him if you want.”

Tyler put his hands over his face and made a half-screaming noise into his fingers, “I don’t know. Fuck. Let me get my act together. I’ll let you know.”

“Talk to him before we leave here though, Seggy. Seriously, it’s the best place.”

“Yeah yeah, I know.”

Tyler cracked open another bottle of rum.

* * *

Geno found them around midnight whilst out on a ramble to try to help him sleep. He toed their prone figures and asked them to make a noise if they were alive. Something indiscernible came out of both of them so he turned around and went to find someone. He came across Jamie first, trailing his feet in the pool in the darkness alone.

“Your two Canadians are drunk.”

“Huh?”

“Tyler and Tyson. _Very_ drunk.”

“Oh god, where?”

Geno showed him the way but Sid gesturing wildly at him from inside the house, so he left Jamie to it. Jamie thrashed through the line of palm trees and found the two of them in a clearing. He kicked an empty liquor bottle as he stumbled around in the weak light of the moon between the trees.

“What were you guys _doing_?”

Neither answered, because both were comatose on the ground. Tyson had his hand on Tyler’s shoulder like he’d been halfway through imparting some deep wisdom, and there was a flip flop on his face. Tyler was hugging an empty bottle to his chest. Jamie did a lot of huffing and sighing, then made his mind up. He was going to be a good captain and a good friend and get both of these idiots safely to bed. And then chirp them endlessly in the morning with all the photos he was going to take.

“Come on guys, time for bed. Tys. Segs.”

He knelt between them and shook them both heavily, “Guys. Come on. I’m not carrying you both.”

It wasn’t a whole lot better when they did wake up. Jamie had dealt with both of them drunk before many times, but not at the same time. Tyler was giggly, handsy and found everything a riot. And Tyson was just spacey and vacant. Jamie grabbed Tyler under his armpits, hauled him upright, and clamped a hand onto Tyson’s shoulder.

“Seriously you two, help me out here.”

Tyler smelt like fruity cocktails and the ocean. It really wasn’t helping any of Jamie’s current life problems to have him plastered to his side. He let his head roll onto Jamie’s shoulder and started laughing at Tyson’s bad attempt to get his flip flop back on.

“Tyson, come on man.”

“We were talking about you,” Tyson slurred, giving up on his right flip flop and bending down to pick it up. The motion would have put him back on the ground if Jamie hadn’t grabbed at his hip and managed to haul him back up.

“Seriously, Tyson, just stand _up_.”

He finally got Tyson’s arm clamped in his hand and started to push them toward the house.

“We were talking about you,” Tyson said again. This time he was gesturing with his empty glass that he’d somehow managed to get hold of.

“Really?”

“Dude _shhhhhhhhh_ ,” Tyler hissed at Tyson, the ‘shush’ going on for much longer than necessary.

“S’ok, s’ok,” Tyson insisted. He let Jamie steer him away from walking into a palm tree, “Not about _that_. We were talking about your hair.”

Both of them burst out laughing. Jamie gave Tyson a shove forward that was maybe a little too hard and they finally made it out of the trees.

“Your hair,” Tyler said in his ear, his voice way too high with laughter. He tried to run a hand through Jamie’s hair but ended up smacking him in the face.

“Oh whoops, sorry. Your face. Tyson, you want another drink?”

They made Jamie stop so that Tyler could try to pour the small dribble of rum left in his bottle into Tyson’s glass with utter concentration. It still managed to go mostly down Tyson’s arm.

“Shit.”

“Don’t worry I can drink this, it’s ok.” Tyson licked his arm, “There.”

“Ok, you’ve both had enough for tonight. Bedtime.”

Tyler started to slide out from under his arm. He pulled hard on Jamie’s shirt as he went down and Jamie was sure he heard threads ripping. Jamie managed to grab a handful of his shorts and was able to drag him back upright.

“What was _that_?” Tyler asked, angrily looking over his shoulder as though something had purposefully tripped him up.

“Nothing, come on, let’s go to bed.”

It was like herding cats, Jamie thought, as he convinced both of them not to head to the pool ‘for a quick swim’. But as long as Tyson stayed within Jamie’s reach and Tyler remained standing it wasn’t quite so bad once they got going. Until they got to the living room.

Tyler was instantly distracted by Auston and Johnny, who were still up and playing Mario Kart. He almost fell in their laps trying to climb onto the couch with them. Both of them gave him an almighty shove back up into Jamie’s arms, “You’re wasted, go to bed Segs.”

Jamie left Tyson swaying on his own and caught Tyler. He pinned his arms to him by encircling him at the chest.

“Come on Tyler.”

“No, I can play. I’m better than Tazer. He’s s _hit_ at Call of Duty.”

Neither of the guys had taken their eyes off the game throughout Tyler’s drunken ramblings.

“You wish, Tyler,” Johnny said absently. He crossed the line in second place and Auston swore and groaned in frustration. Johnny put down his controller and looked up, “What were you guys doing?”

“God knows,” Jamie supplied because Tyler was giggling at Auston getting more and more angry with the game. He kept sticking his foot out to try to toe the controller from Auston’s hand, which wasn’t helping with his anger.

“Geno found them and I am trying to get them to bed. Are Nate and Gabe up?”

“Nate just went to bed, but he said Gabe has been asleep a while.”

He pushed Tyler bodily towards the bedrooms and snagged Tyson on the way, “Come on then, you’re both sleeping in ours.”

Once inside his and Tyler’s bedroom he dumped Tyson onto the sheets and peeled Tyler off his side.

“What about my jammies?” Tyson asked.

Jamie stored that one away for the morning and gave him another push down onto the bed.

“Just sleep, Tys. Sleep. _Now_.”

He yanked the covers from under Tyson’s legs and pulled them over him.

“Tyler, what are you doing?”

Tyler had his shirt half over his head but his arm was stuck.

“I can’t sleep in clothes.”

Jamie tried to quash the eye roll and helped him out of his shirt. Tyson started laughing and his breathless giggle became the soundtrack for Jamie wrestling Tyler into bed.

“Ok goodnight you two,” Jamie said with what he hoped was some captain’s authority. Tyler started wriggling under the sheets, presumably taking off the last vestiges of his clothes, and then went still. Thankfully it took a grand total of 10 seconds for them to go to sleep once their heads were both on their respective pillows. Jamie cleared some stuff around the room for a while to make sure they were definitely asleep and then left them to it. He stuck his head into the Avalanche’s room and saw that Nate was still sat up in bed in the dark and reading stuff on his phone.

“Hey.”

Nate frowned at him and rolled out of bed. They huddled awkwardly in the bedroom doorway.

“What’s up?”

“Tyson and Tyler got wasted together. I put them both in my bed because I thought Gabe needed the rest.”

Nate laughed, “That’s amazing. They are such a mess.”

He peered back through the open slit in their door.

“Hey, come in and sleep with us. I’ll bunk up with Gabe, you can have my bed.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah don’t worry about it. Gabe’s bed is huge. And he took some weird Swedish tablet that basically knocks you out, he won’t notice.”

Jamie thanked him earnestly and left to retrieve his stuff and get ready for bed. Tyson and Tyler were both snoring deeply in his bed and he was happy to shut out that noise on his way out.

“Hey, did Segs say anything to you tonight?” Nate whispered to him when he returned.

“About what?”

“Oh, nothing.” Nate shook his head, “Forget about it.”

Jamie tucked his arms under his head and stared up at the shadowed ceiling. Nate continued reading something on his phone for a while, then the room went fully dark and all he could hear was the pair’s heavy breathing. Tomorrow, he told himself. He would talk to Tyler tomorrow. And they would both be sober and then this will all be sorted out. If it all went wrong then he still had the option to throw himself off a cliff.

Nate’s gruff voice broke the silence, “Jamie?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you hear something?”

“What?”

“Can you hear that noise? Like…scratching.”

Jamie thought he might, butit was quiet enough that his brain might have been fooling him.

“Not sure.”

“I keep hearing it. It’s worse over here on Gabe’s bed.”

“Maybe it’s trees against the house.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Night.”

 


	5. Nature

Tyson was so hungover he thought he might cry. He pushed whoever was snoring next to him and told them to shut the hell up. When he bothered to peer over he saw it was Tyler Seguin’s face smashed into the pillow next to his. The night’s conversation came flooding back to him and he groaned loudly. He did his best to look under the covers at himself without moving his head too much. He still had his shorts on. And a shirt. Possibly even a flip flop. That was something. Tyler looked hungover even asleep, with little lines forming at the bridge of his nose in a pinched, pained expression. He had his mouth open which explained the snoring and a plastic straw was stuck to his neck. One tattooed arm was thrown out over the bed and was resting on Tyson’s stomach. Tyson went back to sleep and when he woke up Tyler was cursing next to him.

“Ow. Fuck. Ow.”

“I think I taste rum. Why were we drinking rum?” Tyson asked, not daring to move any part of his body but his mouth. Tyler looked at him blearily with his eyes only half open. It seemed to take a while to establish who exactly was speaking to him and then he made a long groaning noise, “Did we…?”

“I’m still wearing clothes.”

Tyler looked down at himself under the covers, “I’m not. But I never do when I sleep.”

“We’re fine. I think I remember Jamie putting us to bed.”

Tyler’s hand moved under the covers a bit and then he dragged up a pair of boxers, “Oh. Found my underwear.”

“I didn’t need visual proof you were naked in bed with me.”

“It’s an honour.”

“And I share it with many.”

“Shut up. Don’t talk. My head hurts.”

They lay in companionable pain for a while until the sunlight was too strong through the blinds and the sounds and smells of breakfast came through to them.

“Do you think if we asked nicely someone would make us breakfast and bring it to us in bed? With coffee?”

“Not in a million years.”

“Tell Jamie you fancy him, maybe he’ll do it for you then.”

“Don’t make me regret talking to you last night.”

They both clammed up pretty quickly when the door opened. It was Nate, already grinning in anticipation of what he was about to find.

“Look at you two! How are we feeling? Ready to swim? Ready for a hike?”

They both told him where to go, neither lifting their head off their pillows. Instead of actually fucking off he jumped on the bed with them and annoyed them into getting up.

“I reserved you guys some breakfast. Get moving.”

“Where did Jamie sleep last night?” Tyler asked as he all but crawled to the bathroom, not caring an inch that he was stark bollock naked.

“In my bed, I slept with Gabe. He didn’t throw up all night so that’s something.”

The pair entered the communal area to a round of applause.

Tyler whimpered and put both hands over his ears as Tyson groaned, “Shut up, I hate you all.”

“So we found like three empty bottles of rum out there. Were you two just drinking straight rum?”

“God knows,” Tyler said, easing himself gingerly onto a kitchen island stool. He was wearing a pair of joggers and nothing else. He knew his breath stank and his hair stuck up in every direction, but he didn’t care. He spied food, and coffee, and if he could just get through the chirping then maybe someone would give him the hangover cures he so desperately needed.

“You’re lucky you didn’t wander off in the dark and get lost,” Connor said, with a shake of his head.

“We’re on an island, exactly how lost can we get?”

“Did you see yourselves last night? You’d have got lost in the kitchen.”

Eventually the ribbing died down, and Ovi and Leon passed them a plate of food each from where they were manning the burners. The rest discussed their plans for the day as Tyson and Tyler chugged water, then coffee, then painkillers. It helped take the edge off, as did snoring loudly under the the shades by the pool for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

They dealt with the increasing panic the only way they knew how - they didn't speak about it.

Whilst everyone quietly freaked out to themselves, there was no group-wide discussion about what was going on. The shit in the magazine was one thing, but no phone signal, three members of the group clearly unwell, no way to get hold of the concierge, and no promised visit to restock on food and drink all made the issue more pressing.

Later that day they listlessly searched through the fridge for something to put together for a late lunch. There weren't a whole lot of options left.

Tyson pulled a face and held up his hand.

“Can you guys hear that?”

Geno cocked his head, “Sounds like rain.”

“Is that coming from our bedroom?”

“Shit, maybe something’s leaking in the bathroom.”

Nate pulled the door open to investigate. He regretted it instantly.

Fifteen hockey players simultaneously put their lifetime of training in gear and moved - fast - away from the kitchen area. And away from the tidal wave of rats that came spilling out of the newly opened door.

Any surface more than two feet high was leapt upon: the coffee table, the couches, the kitchen island.

Tyson jumped half on Nate’s back and half on the kitchen counter, nearly strangling his teammate in the process; Tyler, Mitch and Leon were nimble enough to get their asses up onto the fireplace mantlepiece and dangle there, eyes bugged out in horror; and Fleury managed, somehow, to get halfway up the fridge. 

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!”

A similar string of expletives rang out around the room in Swedish, German, French and Russian. 

“They’re going out, someone open the door!” Jamie yelled from where he was gripping Nicke's arms, both of them balanced preciously on the coffee table. 

Sid looked around and found no-one closer to the door than he was. He gritted his teeth and stepped off the back of the couch, onto a side table, and just about managed to reach across and snag the handle for the sliding door. He pulled it back with a heave and the rats smelt freedom. They followed one another in a tumbling wave out the door, sniffing the air for places unknown, and slowly began to trickle down the patio and to the bottom of the garden. A few stragglers snuffled with interest around the corners of the room, so a few of the braver guys jumped down and helped them on their way. Johnny snatched a broom from a utility cupboard and pushed the last few out of the door.

“Holy. Fuck,” Tyler said, still perched on the mantlepiece. Auston slowly slid down onto the floor beside him.

“Jesus Christ. Where did they come from?”

“Were they in our bedroom the whole time?” Tyson squawked, his chest heaving. He was back on the floor but still clutching the back of Nate’s shirt.

“I thought I heard something in there, I told you,” Nate said, wiping a hand across his face. He grabbed a rolled up magazine for protection, uncurled Tyson’s fingers from his clothes and tiptoed into the room.

“Oh god, they’ve shit all over the place!”

The rats had indeed shit all over the place. The Avalanche’s room was a state - there was rat droppings everywhere, the beds included, and the furniture had been gnawed on.

A brave Geno went in with a torch and revealed that some of the rats had turned on one another. There were quite a few fallen comrades in the wall behind the wardrobe. He shut the door and flicked off the flashlight.

“Is bad,” he said to Tyson, who couldn’t look more crestfallen if he tried.

“Maybe we can wash the sheets on a really high wash.”

“I’m not sleeping in here, no way. I don’t want to get the plague.”

“This place is fucking disgusting,” Nate growled, throwing his broom down, “And what the hell are rats doing trapped in the wall anyway?”

Sid sucked in air as Ovi nudged a pile of droppings with his broom, “This is all just way too weird. No phone signal, no wifi, no-one has turned up to give us more food, there was a magazine with things in people shouldn’t know about us, the TV is stuck on porn channels, now an infestation of _rats_  were somehow trapped in our walls.”

There were six of them in the room inspecting the damage - Sid, Geno, Ovi, Nate, Tyson and Auston. None of them said anything for a long time, their gazes turned to the hole in the back of the wardrobe, their minds on the series of events that had led them up to now.

“Did _they_ put them there?” Auston asked, eventually.

“Going by the last few days I’d say yeah. Whoever ‘they’ are, did.”

“The guy who invited us here?”

“Why would a billionaire invite a load of his favourite hockey players to an island then fuck with them?”

All of them had been thinking over these questions over the last few days, and now the dam of silence had broken between them there wasn’t a way to stop it. They were pretty sure the guys in the other room were having the exact same conversation.

“You think it’s all some sort of prank show?”

“Maybe everything is just a massive coincidence.”

“Can we find a way to get off the island at all? Is there a boat anywhere?”

It took them a while but eventually they ran out of steam. Sid let out a sigh and said, “Just move what’s clean into the living room, we can find you somewhere else to sleep. Wash what you think isn’t too gross, and we’ll shut this door and leave it.”

“What about the dead ones? What if something wants to eat them?”

“Then at least they’ll get rid of them.”

Gabe was not pleased to lose their bathroom, which had become his private sanctuary in which to vomit out of range of the other players, but Tyler nudged him toward their bedroom en-suite, and promised they’d leave him alone as long as they could throughout the day. Gabe thanked him glumly.

No-one wanted to stay inside after that. To try and lift the mood Johnny suggested a game of water polo, but it only did a little to keep everyone’s minds off the tsunami of rodents.

“Guys, we’re on an island, it’s not like they rats have _gone_. They’re probably hanging out at the bottom of the garden.”

“Shut up and serve.”

* * *

 

They were all reluctant to go inside that evening. Although Fleury seemed to have made a recovery, Mitch and Gabe had taken a turn for the worse and threw up almost as often as at the start. A few of the others hovered near them, trying to help by ferrying water, but the mood was low when the sun finally dipped over the horizon. Everybody left the two to nap in their rooms, Gabe now bunking in with the Penguins, and moved to sit by the fire pit and chat quietly between themselves.

No-one wanted to bring up the questions of why, how, who, what...

Nicke disappeared to his and Ovi’s rooms for a while and came back with Monopoly.

“I found a load of games in the cupboard in the kitchen. Anyone want to play?”

Enough people raised their hands to get a game going. Tyler began to sort the money carefully and asked Nicke, “Any sign of more rats?”

“No, none.” Nicke shrugged his shoulders and flexed his neck, as though he were uncomfortable, “I can feel them on me though, you know?”

“I know,” Tyson grumbled, running his hands along his thighs, “I feel like they’re in my clothes.”

“Oh shit.”

The group looked up to where Leon was staring at Nicke’s back.

“Nicke, don’t move,” he said, swallowing.

“What? Why?”

“Just stay still.”

“Is there a rat on me?!”

“Not a rat, no.”

A few of the guys close by crowded round carefully to see.

“Tell me,” Nicke snapped, totally frozen.

“Ok, it’s fine, it’s a scorpion,” Ovi said, hands out towards him like he a frightened animal from bolting, “Just stay still.”

“What the fuck? Get it off, then!”

“Give me a second,” Auston said, standing up. He grabbed a large glass from the table and tossed out whatever drink was inside.

“Hold that,” he instructed Leon, who did as he was told. He disappeared into the house for a moment and returned with a fire glove from the fireplace.

“Ok, just keep still Nicke and I’ll get it off you.”

Auston leant forward and peered at the scorpion on Nicke’s back, the rest of the group watching in silence. He carefully moved his hand forward and with a quick snap caught the scorpion’s tail just below the sting between the chunky fingers of the fire glove. He peeled it off the hoody it was quite happily attached to and dropped it into the glass Leon was holding. He covered the top with his gloved hand and jogged off into the garden with the scorpion nestled inside. Nicke immediately stood up and threw off his hoody, running his hands up and down his sides.

The others stood well back, just in case.

“You’re fine, you’re fine,” Ovi said, because he was a good teammate and checked him all over as well, “No more scorpions.”

“Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know. I went to our room, I found my hoody on the floor and put it on. It must have been on there."

Connor remembered to breathe and let out a long shaky breath. “I hate insects,” he muttered to himself.

Nicke thanked Auston profusely when he reappeared with an empty glass.

“At least it wasn’t that big.”

Auston shook his head and removed the glove to check his fingertips, “It’s not the big ones you want to worry about. Nine times out of ten their venom isn’t bad. It’s the little ones you’ve got to be careful of.”

“There speaks a man who grew up in Arizona.”

“Exactly. You’re fine though, Nicke. It didn’t sting you right?”

“I didn’t feel anything, no.” He pulled his shirt up at the back and Ovi took a look at the skin between his shoulder blades.

“Don’t see anything.”

“Then it’s ok. You’d be feeling it by now if it had. But we need to work out if that was just a loner, or if he’s got friends.”

Ovi went with Auston to their room to figure it out. Fleury bravely offered to help, armed with a broom.

“I’ve officially got the creeps. I don’t want to touch anything anymore,” Nate said as he rubbed his hands up and down his arms.

The trio came back with grim news, “There’s loads of them. They’re coming out the back of the wardrobe.”

“Can’t we just kill them all? Or remove them?”

“They’re not just going to rush out like the rats did. It looks like they’ve only just started noticing a way out and they’re coming out slowly. If we kill them there’ll just be more in their place.”

“And we really, really don’t want anyone to get stung out here. Who knows whether they are venomous or not, but we don’t want to find out.”

“Come on Nicke, we need to get our stuff.”

Nicke reluctantly trailed after his captain and they picked through their belongings. With the Avalanches’ room out of commission, the Penguins’ room taking two thirds of the sick patients, and now the Capital’s room out of bounds, the remaining space in the villa was slowly dwindling.

Nicke and Ovi opted for the couch, and planned on sleeping top to tail, armed with a blanket if needed.

Gabe remained on a sofa bed in the Penguins room. Tyson and Nate valiantly collected the mattress from the Capitals’ bedroom - better to sleep on something touched by scorpions than by rats. They pushed it into the corner of the Stars’ bedroom and hunkered down there.

Auston sealed up their old room as best as he could with some Arizona home remedies for keeping scorpions away: a tightly shut door with cinnamon and a blanket stuffed into the gap - one of his mother's longstanding pieces of advice. 

It was unanimously decided that everyone should just go to bed, and hope for a better day. Nicke spent the night having dreams about being crushed by a scorpion, and woke up more than once with Ovi's enormous foot on his chest. 

 


End file.
